Britian puts EU vote plans on ice

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The European Union has been plunged even further into turmoil by
Britain's decision to shelve plans to vote on its near-dead
constitution despite French and German calls to keep it alive.

Analysts say the chances of resuscitating the charter, dealt an
almost killer blow by Dutch and French voters last week, now look
increasingly slim.

Now London's decision to put plans for a British referendum on
the constitution on ice sets the stage for fierce clashes at an EU
summit next week.

"Those who are calling for a 'no' to ratification are gaining
ground," said Marco Incerti of the Centre for European Reform.

The constitution, which aims to prevent decision-making gridlock
in the expanding 25-member bloc, was left virtually dead in the
water after its crushing rejection by two of the EU's six founder
states.

But French President Jacques Chirac and German's Gerhard
Schroeder have insisted that the process of ratifying it should
continue, hoping to win time to decide how to cope with the
Franco-Dutch double ballot blow.

The EU's Luxembourg presidency has also called for voting to
continue, with five or six countries in addition to Britain in
theory scheduled to hold referendums before November 2006.

"The ratification process if not dead ... It would have been if
the British government had said it would stop the ratification,"
which it didn't, said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude
Juncker.

But the British move makes it increasingly likely the
long-cherished charter has all but failed.

"It's not yet dead, neither has the machine been switched off,"
said Hugo Brady of the Centre for European Reform in London. "But
they are preparing for such an eventuality."

Britain has "manoeuvred to the fullest extent possible without
being seen to be the people who've actually killed the treaty," he
added.

More widely, the constitution crisis threatens to trigger a
top-to-bottom overhaul of the entire half-century-old EU project,
which has for decades been dominated by France and Germany.

For Britain, long the "semi-detached" eurosceptic country in the
bloc, the stunning political blow to the traditional EU
heavyweights could offer an opportunity to push its less federalist
vision of the EU, some suggest.

"I don't think the federalism vision in general will be able to
progress in the current circumstances," said Brady.

But others say British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is
coincidentally set to take over the EU's rotating presidency on
July 1, may not be best advised to press too hard for key
"anglo-saxon" causes such as economic reform and EU expansion.

"I don't see how pushing an agenda that contributed powerfully
to two referendum defeats would be a positive thing to do," said
Patrick Dunleavy, professor at the London School of Economics.

"That's not to say that it won't be tried," he added.

Concretely the constitution crisis risks complicating one
immediate task facing the EU: seeking agreement on its long-term
budget plans for the period from 2007-2013.

The EU's leadership says it must strike a budget accord at next
week's summit, to show the bloc can still function despite its
crisis. "Even more than before, we have a driving obligation to
reach an agreement," Juncker said.

Analysts note that Britain was careful not to definitively rule
out voting on the constitution, but put the onus firmly on the
French and Dutch to overcome their voters' rejections - a seemingly
impossible task.

"They've actually tried to leave the coffin half open," said
Incerti.

"If one looks at this objectively ... the camp which is calling
for a halt to ratification has strong arguments now."

For others current events have already marked the end of an era
for the European bloc, which accelerated its drive for "ever closer
union" notably after the collapse of communism at the end of the
1990s.

"I don't think that integration is dead in the water," said
Brady.

"The period that saw the Union have its own flag, its own
anthem, that whole idea has been cast into doubt."